WE are prepared in this number to take up the question, How are
the public to know what Freemasonry really is? This we may
answer.

1. Negatively. (1.) Masonry cannot be known from a perusal of
the eulogistic books which adhering Masons have written. Of course
they are under oath in no way whatever to reveal the secrets of
Masonry. But it is their secrets that the public are concerned to
know. Now their eulogistic books, as any one may know who will
examine them, are silly, and for the most part little better than
twaddle. If we read their orations and sermons that have been
published in support of Masonry, and the books that they have
written, we shall find much that is silly, much that is false, and
a great deal more that is mere bombast and rho domontade. I do not
say this rashly. Any person who will examine the subject for
himself must admit that this language is strictly true. But I
shall have occasion hereafter when we come to examine the
character of the institution, to show more clearly the utter
ignorance or dishonesty of the men who have eulogized it.

Let it be understood, then, that adhering Masons do not profess
to publish their secrets. And that which the country and the
church are particularly interested to understand they never
publish--their oaths, for example; and, therefore, we cannot tell
from what they write what they are under oath to do.

(2.) We cannot learn what Masonry is from the oral testimony of
adhering Masons.

Let it be pondered well that every one of them is under oath to
conceal and in no way whatever to reveal the secrets of the order.
This Freemasons do not deny. Hence, if they are asked if the books
in which Masonry has been published are true, they will either
evade the question or else they will lie; and they are under oath
to do so.

Observe, adhering Masons are the men who still acknowledge the
binding obligation of their oaths. Now, if they are asked if those
books truly reveal Masonry, they consider themselves under an
obligation to deny it, if they say anything about it. And, as they
are well aware that to refuse to say anything about it is a
virtual acknowledgment that the books are true, and would
therefore be an indirect revelation of Masonry; they will almost
universally deny that the books are true. Some of them are ashamed
to say anything more than that there is some truth and a great
deal of falsehood in them.

(3.) As they are under oath to conceal the secrets of Masonry,
and in no wise whatever to reveal any part of them, their
testimony in regard to the truthfulness or untruthfulness of those
books is of no value whatever. It is mere madness to receive the
testimony of men who are under oath, and under the most horrid
oaths that can be taken--oaths sustained by the most terrific
penalties that can be named to conceal their secrets and to deny
that they have been published, and that those books contain
them--I say it is downright madness to receive the testimony of
such men, it matters not who they are. Masons have no right to
expect an intelligent person to believe their denials that these
books have truly revealed Masonry. Nor have they a right to
complain if we reject their testimony. What would they have us do?
Shall we believe the testimony of men who admit that they are
under oath to conceal and never in any way reveal the secrets of
their order, when they deny that their secrets are revealed in
certain books, and shall we ignore the testimony of thousands who
have conscientiously renounced those horrid oaths, at the hazard
of their lives, and declared with one accord, and many of them
under the sanction of judicial oaths lawfully administered, that
Morgan, Bernard and others have truly revealed the secrets of
Freemasonry? There are at this day thousands of most conscientious
men who are ready to testify on oath that those books contain a
substantially correct exposition of Freemasonry as it was and is.
I say again that Freemasons have no right to expect us to believe
their denials; for while they adhere to Masonry they are under
oath to "conceal and never reveal" any part of its secrets and of
course they must expressly or impliedly deny every revelation of
its secrets that can be made. Would they have us stultify
ourselves by receiving their testimony?

2. Positively. How, then, are we to know what Masonry is? I
answer: (1.) From the published and oral testimony of those who
have taken the degrees; and afterward, from conscientious motives,
have confessed their error, and have publicly renounced Masonry.
But it has been said that these are perjured men, and therefore
not at all to be believed. But let it be remarked that this very
accusation is an admission that they have published the truth;
for, unless they have published the secrets of Masonry truly, they
have violated no Masonic oath. Therefore, when Masons accuse them
of being perjured, the very objection which they make to the
testimony of these witnesses is an acknowledgment on the part of
Masons themselves that they have truly published their
secrets.

But again. If to reveal the secrets of Masonry be perjury, it
follows that to accuse the revealers of Masonry of perjury, is
itself perjury; because by their accusation they tacitly admit
that that which has been published is truly a revelation of
Masonry, and therefore their accusation is a violation of their
oath of secresy. Let it then be understood that the very objection
to these witnesses, that they have committed perjury, is itself an
acknowledgment that the witnesses are entirely credible, and have
revealed Masonry as it is. And not only so--but in bringing
forward the objection, they commit perjury themselves, if it be
perjury to reveal their secrets, because, as I have said, in
accusing the witnesses of perjury, they add their testimony to the
fact that these witnesses have published Masonry as it is. So that
by their own testimony, in bringing this charge of perjury, they
themselves swell the number of witnesses to the truthfulness of
these revelations.

(2.) Renouncing Masons are the best possible witnesses by whom
to prove what Masonry really is. (a.) They are competent
witnesses. They testify from their own personal knowledge of what
it is. (b.) They are in the highest degree credible witnesses.
First, because they testify against themselves. They confess their
own wrong in having taken those terrible oaths, and in having had
any part in sustaining the institution. Secondly, their testimony
is given with the certainty of incurring a most unrelenting
persecution. Adhering Freemasons are under oath to persecute them,
to destroy their characters, and to seek to bring them to condign
punishment. This we shall see when we come to examine the books.
Adhering Masons have persecuted, and still persecute, those that
reveal their secrets, just as far as they dare. They are in the
highest degree intolerant., and this every Mason knows. In a
recent number of their great Masonic organ, published in New York,
they advise the Masons in Oberlin in no way to patronize those who
oppose them. Those who renounce Masonry are well aware of their
danger. But, notwithstanding, they are constrained by their
consciences, by the fear and love of God, and by regard to the
interests of their country, to renounce and expose it. Now,
surely, witnesses that testify under such circumstances are
entitled to credit; especially as they could have had no
conceivable motive for deceiving the public. Their testimony was
wrung from them by conscience. And the authors of the books that I
have named, together with several others--such as Richardson,
Stearns, and Mr. Allyn, and I know not how many others--are
sustained by the testimony of forty-five thousand who publicly
renounced Masonry, out of a little more than fifty thousand that
composed the whole number of Freemasons then in the United States.
Now, it should be well remembered that the five thousand who still
adhered belonged almost altogether to the slaveholding States, and
had peculiar reasons for still adhering to the institution of
Masonry. And, further, let it be distinctly observed that, as they
adhered to Masonry, their testimony is null, because they still
regarded themselves as under oath in no wise to reveal their
secrets; consequently, they would, of course, deny that these
books had truly revealed Masonry. I say again, it is mere madness
to receive their testimony.

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